Opening statements begin in retrial of man accused in 2008 murder of Palm Springs art dealer
A 40-year-old man accused of killing a Palm Springs retiree in 2008 was afflicted with "a feverish need for money," so he devised a plan to murder and defraud, a prosecutor said today during opening statements in the man's retrial -- while the defendant's attorney said his client is not guilty because law enforcement failed to assess real evidence and fell into an "illogical trap of confirmation bias."
Daniel Garcia is charged with one felony count each of murder, conspiracy to commit a crime, using the personal identity information of another to obtain credit, and using a forged instrument.
He's also charged with three felony counts of burglary, two of grand theft over $950 and one misdemeanor count of receiving stolen property, according to court records. He additionally faces a special circumstance allegation of murder for financial gain and a sentence-enhancing allegation of fraud or embezzlement.
Garcia was convicted in 2012 with Kaushal Niroula, 41, in the 2008 Palm Springs killing of Clifford Lambert, and both were sentenced to life terms. But they were granted new trials because of the behavior of the judge in the original trial. Niroula was killed at the Cois Byrd Detention Center on Sept. 6, 2022.
Co-defendants Miguel Bustamante, 40 and David Replogle, 74, were first convicted in 2011, resulting in sentences of life in prison without the possibility of parole. However, they appealed their verdicts based on appeals successfully lodged by Garcia and Niroula.
Replogle, on Aug. 11, 2022, and Bustamante, on June 14, were convicted again but have yet to be sentenced. Both defendants faced the same felony charges as Garcia and were both found guilty on all but one felony count of grand theft over $950, which they both had dismissed.
Replogle is set to be sentenced Tuesday and Bustamante on Aug. 11.
Other co-defendants are Russell Manning, who is now dead, and Craig McCarthy, who pleaded guilty in 2010 to felony charges.
Deputy District Attorney Robert Hightower told the jury Monday morning that the six defendants allegedly teamed up to take advantage of and kill Clifford Lambert, who was fatally stabbed in the kitchen of his Palm Springs home on Dec. 5, 2008, for financial gain.
He told jurors that Lambert was on an online dating site, where he met Garcia, who was living in Sacramento at the time.
"Daniel Garcia was afflicted with a feverish need for money. Cliff Lambert had it. Daniel Garcia wanted it. So he devised a plan from rejection and greed, but he couldn't do it alone," Hightower said. "To execute that plan he (enlisted) a fellow con man to help him murder and defraud Clifford Lambert."
Hightower took jurors through a timeline of events between April 2008 and March 2009, starting from the point Garcia and Lambert met online until Garcia was arrested.
After meeting online, they planned for Garcia to stay at Lambert's home for a week, when the defendant proposed to Lambert the idea of investing in his business idea. But Lambert nixed the proposal and made him leave as he saw Garcia's alleged true intentions, Hightower said.
Before that happened, self-proclaimed computer whiz Garcia allegedly obtained Lambert's personal information, including his credit card information, which was used to upgrade a flight back home and angered Lambert, Hightower said.
The plan is believed to have taken motion in November 2008, when Replogle and Niroula flew to Palm Springs to allegedly recruit Manning to pose as Lambert in the scheme, according to Hightower.
In early December 2008, Niroula allegedly posed as an attorney, called Lambert to tell him that he was inheriting a large amount of money, and set up a meeting with him for Dec. 4, 2008, when McCarthy and Bustamante broke into his home and armed themselves, but didn't follow through with anything.
Niroula set up a second meeting for the following day at Lambert's home and at some point when they were in the living room, Niroula excused himself and walked to the kitchen, where he allegedly let McCarthy and Bustamante in through the side door, Hightower said.
The door made two beeping noises, which alerted Lambert and caused him to walk into the kitchen, where he was stabbed repeatedly before he was wrapped up in a rug, loaded into the trunk of his Mercedes, and dumped along the way to Daly City, near San Francisco, Hightower said. After two days, Lambert's friend filed a missing person report.
In 2020, it was confirmed that parts of Lambert's body started to be found in 2016, when pipeline workers found a jawbone along Templin Highway in Castaic, Hightower said. His skull was found near the same area in 2017.
Garcia's defense attorney, Stephen P. Jones, told jurors that the evidence will show his client was also a victim, not to murder, but to confirmation bias.
"What we believe the real evidence will actually show here is that law enforcement and the people dug up four or five pieces of facially attractive, but as it turns out, totally unreliable evidence,'' Jones said. "From that point forward they all made all their further assumptions based on them, and most especially, in regards to Mr. Garcia's involvement."
Jones also told jurors that evidence will show Garcia actually had nothing to do with the murder, and that incriminating documents were uploaded to his client's computer and phone shortly before he was arrested.
In addition, Jones said, Garcia actually received support from Lambert on his business idea but eventually learned how tight Lambert was with money, so he couldn't have devised a murder plan with that knowledge. Garcia was instead wrongly accused due to what Jones called an "illogical trap of confirmation bias" from law enforcement.
